As I was passing by
the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge
creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg.

No chains, no
cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the
ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. I saw a trainer
nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and
made no attempt to get away.

"Well,"
he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size
rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up,
they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope
can still hold them, so they never try to break free.

"I was amazed.
These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they
believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants,
how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do
something, simply because we failed at it once before?

There was a king
who was a great admirer of art. One day an artist came and said to the king,
“Oh King! Give me a blank wall in your palace and let me paint a picture on
it.”

The artist was
given the job. Just then, another young man said, “Oh King! Please allow me to
work on the opposite wall. I too am an artist.”
The king said, “What would you like to make?” The man said, “My Lord, I
shall make exactly what that man will make on the opposite wall. Moreover, I
shall do so, without looking at his work. I would even request you to have a
thick curtain put up between the two walls so that either of us cannot see the
other.”

Everyone in the
king’s court, including the king was intrigued. He decided to give the young
fellow a chance. The following day a thick curtain was put into place and both
the artists got to work. The first artist brought in a regular supply of paint,
oil, water etc. The second one worked with some cloth and a bucket of water.
After a month the first artist told the king that his work was complete. The
king sent for the second artist and asked him, “Young man, when would your work
be ready? I am coming to see the first wall this evening.” The man said, “My
Lord, my wall is ready too!”

The king went to
see the first artist’s wall. He was very, very impressed with the painting and
gave a hefty sum as a reward to the artist. He then asked for the curtain to be
opened up. Lo and behold! The same painting was to be seen on the opposite wall
too! Amazing! But true! Each line, each minor detail was exactly as it was on
the first wall. But this man had not been seeing what was going on, on the
other side of the curtain. So how had he done it?

The king wanted to
know the secret. He gave a double reward to the fellow. Then he said, “Young
man, I am indeed very happy with your work. But you must tell me; how did you
do it?”

The lad said
simply, “It’s very easy! I just polished the wall every day till it shone like
a mirror!” It was a wall made of white marble! The reflection of the painting
across the room, showed up in it!

That is what it
means to polish yourself. World is a reflection of you. Whatever you are, the world
will seem to be that too. If you are happy, the world will look to be happy. If
you are sad; jealous; angry; restless... That is what the world will seem to be
to you!

A man who had just
got married was returning home with his wife . They were crossing a lake in a
boat, when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, but the woman
became very much afraid because it seemed hopeless since the boat was small and
it seemed that any moment they were going to be drowned. But the man remained
silent and was at peace , calm and quiet, as if nothing was happening.

The woman was
terrified and trembling and asked, “Are you not afraid ?”. This may be our last
moment of life! Only some miracle can
save us; otherwise death is certain.

The man laughed and
took the sword out of its sheath. The woman was even more puzzled: What was he
going to do? Then he brought the naked sword close to the woman’s
neck almost touching it.

He said, “Are you
afraid ?”

She started to
laugh and said,”Why should I be afraid? If the sword is in your hands, why I
should be afraid? I know you love me.”

“He put the sword
back and said, You have got the answer “. I know God Loves us , and the storm
is in His hands.

“Your son is here,”
she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the
patient’s eyes opened.

Heavily sedated
because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed
Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine
wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man’s limp ones, squeezing a
message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a
chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the
young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man’s hand
and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that
the Marine move away and rest awhile.

He refused.
Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of
the night noises of the hospital – the clanking of the oxygen tank, the
laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans
of the other patients.

Now and then she
heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly
to his son all through the night.

Along towards dawn,
the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding
and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.

Finally, she
returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted
her.

“Who was that man?”
he asked.

The nurse was
startled, “He was your father,” she answered.

“No, he wasn’t,”
the Marine replied.

“I never saw him
before in my life.”

“Then why didn’t
you say something when I took you to him?”

“I knew right away
there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just
wasn’t here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was
his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed.”

Some time ago, a
friend of mine punished his 3-year old daughter for wasting a roll of gold
wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became infuriated when the child tried
to decorate a box to put under the tree.

Nevertheless, the
little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said,
"This is for you, Daddy." He was embarrassed by his earlier
overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that the box was empty.
He yelled at her, "Don't you know when you give someone a present, there's
supposed to be something inside of it?"

The little girl
looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it;s not
empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy."

The father was
crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and begged for forgiveness. My
friend told me that he kept that old box by his bed for years. Whenever he was
discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the
child who had put it there.

In a very real
sense, each of us as parents has been given a gold container filled with
unconditional love and kisses from our children. There is no more precious
possession anyone could hold.

At this,
the sailor was terribly hurt and aggrieved. But he kept quiet. Suddenly the
boat was extremely nervous in the high waves and gushing water. "Do you
know how to swim, learned Sir?" asked the sailor.

"No!"
said the scholar.

The
ferryman remarked, "Alas! You have wasted your whole life for the boat is
sure to capsize in a few minutes."

While sports
fishing off the Florida coast, a tourist capsized his boat. He could swim, but
his fear of alligators kept him clinging to the overturned craft. Spotting an
old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted, "Are there any
gators around here?"

"Naw,"
the man hollered back, "they ain't been around for years!"

Feeling safe, the
tourist started swimming leisurely toward the shore.

About halfway there
he asked the guy, "How'd you get rid of the gators?"

Farmer John lived
on a quiet rural highway. But, as time went by, the traffic slowly built up at
an alarming rate. The traffic was so heavy and so fast that his chickens were
being run over at a rate of three to six a day.

So one day Farmer
John called the sheriff's office and said, "You've got to do something
about all of these people driving so fast and killing all of my chickens."

"What do you
want me to do?" asked the sheriff.

"I don't care,
just do something about those crazy drivers!" So the next day he had the
county workers go out and erected a sign that said: SLOW--SCHOOL CROSSING

Three days later
Farmer John called the sheriff and said, "You've got to do something about
these drivers. The 'school crossing'
sign seems to make them go even faster."

So, again, the
sheriff sends out the county workers and they put up a new sign: SLOW: CHILDREN
AT PLAY

That really sped
them up. So Farmer John called and called and called every day for three weeks.
Finally, he asked the sheriff, "Your signs are doing no good. Can I put up
my own sign?"

The sheriff told
him, "Sure thing, put up your own sign." He was going to let the
Farmer John do just about anything in order to get him to stop calling everyday
to complain.

The sheriff got no
more calls from Farmer John. Three weeks later, curiosity got the best of the
sheriff and he decided to give Farmer John a call. "How's the problem with
those drivers. Did you put up your sign?"

"Oh, I sure did. And not one chicken has
been killed since then. I've got to go. I'm very busy." He hung up the
phone.

The sheriff was
really curious now and he thought to himself, "I'd better go out there and
take a look at that sign...it might be something that WE could use to slow down
drivers..."

So the sheriff
drove out to Farmer John's house, and
his jaw dropped the moment he saw the sign. It was spray-painted on a sheet of
wood:

NUDIST COLONY......GO SLOW AND WATCH OUT FOR THE
CHICKS!

Moral of the story : There are always simpler ways of fixing complex problems!

But one day he saw
a swan. "This swan is so white," he thought, "and I am so black.

This swan must be
the happiest bird in the world."

He expressed his
thoughts to the swan. "Actually," the swan replied, "I was
feeling that I was the happiest bird around until I saw a parrot, which has two
colours. I now think the parrot is the happiest bird in creation."

The crow then
approached the parrot. The parrot explained, "I lived a very happy lifeuntil I saw a peacock. I have
only two colours, but the peacock has multiple colours."

The crow then
visited a peacock in the zoo and saw that hundreds of people had gathered to
see him.

After the people
had left, the crow approached the peacock. "Dear peacock," the crow
said, "you are so beautiful. Every day thousands of people come to see
you. When people see me, they immediately shoo me away. I think you are the
happiest bird on the planet."

The peacock
replied, "I always thought that I was the most beautiful and happy bird on
the planet. But because of my beauty, I am entrapped in this zoo.

I have examined the
zoo very carefully, and I have realized that the crow is the only bird not kept
in a cage. So for past few days I have been thinking that if I were a crow, I
could happily roam everywhere."

Now let us
understand this metaphorically. Much of
our unhappiness stems from comparing ourselves with others. Instead of valuing what we have, we take what
we have for granted and start valuing everything else that we dont have or wish
to have. Realize that comparison can
only lead to unhappiness just as only expectation can lead to disappointment.